Aelia Flacilla Roman AE4 (AD 356-386) NGC

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Aelia Flacilla Roman AE4 (AD 356-386) NGC. Born in Hispania, the Roman Empress Aelia Flaccilla was the wife of Theodosius the Great and the mother of the emperors Arcadius and Honorius. Like her pious husband, she was a staunch Christian. The theologian Theodoret quoted her as saying: ”To distribute money belongs to the imperial dignity, but I offer up for the imperial dignity itself personal service to the Giver.“ The Palatium Flaccillianum of Constantiople was named for her.

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Aelia Flavia Flaccilla (died 386) was a Roman empress and first wife of the Roman Emperor Theodosius I. She was of Hispanian Roman descent. During her marriage to Theodosius, she gave birth to two sons – future Emperors Arcadius and Honorius – and a daughter, Aelia Pulcheria.

According to Laus Serenae ("In Praise of Serena"), a poem by Claudian, both Serena and Flaccilla were from Hispania.^[1]

A passage of Themistius (Oratio XVI, De Saturnino) has been interpreted to identify Flaccilla's father as Claudius Antonius, Praetorian prefect of Gaul from 376 to 377 and Roman consul in 382. However the relation is considered doubtful.^[2] In 1967, John Robert Martindale, later one of several article writers in the Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, suggested that the passage actually identifies Antonius as the brother-in-law of Theodosius. However the passage is vague enough to allow Afranius Syagrius, co-consul of Antonius in 382, to be the brother-in-law in question.^[3] The only kin clearly identified in primary sources was her nephew Nebridius, son of an unnamed sister.^[4]